7/12/2012

Latest signs of a worsening drought

Add captionA dock extends into a dry cove at Morse Reservoir in Noblesville, Ind.,
on July 5. The central Indiana reservoir is down 3.5 feet from normal
levels. Michael Conroy / AP file

From exploding hay bales to a sprinkler ban in Indianapolis, the
Midwest and Plains states continue to be tested by a hot, dry summer.
A
drought update Thursday didn't offer much hope either: 61 percent of
the contiguous U.S. was listed in drought, up from 56 percent last week,
according to the National Weather Service's Drought Monitor.
"Anytime
we have a drought maturing in mid-summer, the chances for rapid
intensification will be there," Gary McManus, Oklahoma's associate state
climatologist, told msnbc.com. "Even normal heat and dry conditions can
speed that drought along."

Farmers from Iowa to Oklahoma in recent weeks have reported hay bales catching fire through spontaneous combustion.
Near Salix, Iowa, five fire departments responded to a hay fire on Tuesday that quickly consumed a storage facility, NBC affiliate KTIV reported.
While that can happen any time there's moisture in hay mixed with
heat, this summer is particularly dangerous after late spring rains
provided the needed moisture in the hay.
"The chance
of hay bales spontaneously combusting is higher when we’ve had a lot of
rain," Nigel Collinson, director of Agrical, a major insurance
adjuster, told Farmers Weekly in June as the hay baling season was in full swing.
In
western Oklahoma, where hay bales also recently burst into flames, the
threat of brush and grassland fires is greater this year than last
because the state enough spring rain to allow vegetation to grow.
"The
rains allowed the growth to get up pretty good, so there are a lot of
troubles this year," Mike Karlin, assistant chief of the Weatherford
Fire Department, told the Associated Press. "That moisture has gone and
it's gotten extremely dry out.
"We're
dealing with a situation that's fast approaching what we saw last
year," he said, referring to the drought that started in 2010 and left
much of the landscape cracked and dry.
In Indiana, water rationing
has spread to Indianapolis. Plummeting reservoirs have led to a ban,
starting Friday, on watering lawns with sprinklers. Plants, flowers and
trees can still be watered with a hose.

Fines start at $100, increasing up to $2,500 for repeat offenders.
"If we have some people who are solidly abusing it we're certainly going to make an example," Mayor Greg Ballard told NBC affiliate WTHR-TV.
Indianapolis is going through its longest dry spell in 104 years of records, weather.com noted. Since June 1, just .09 inches of rain have fallen there, when the average is closer to 6 inches.
Nearly
half of Indiana was listed as in "extreme drought" in the latest
Drought Monitor, with the other half seeing either severe or moderate
conditions.
In northeast Indiana, rainfall in some parts is 11 inches below normal for the last three months, according to the monitor.

In
Indiana and 17 other key corn-growing states, "30 percent of the crop
is now in poor or very poor condition, up from 22 percent the previous
week," the report stated. "In addition, fully half of the nation’s
pastures and ranges are in poor or very poor condition, up from 28
percent in mid-June.

"The hot, dry conditions have also allowed for a dramatic increase
in wildfire activity since mid-June," the report noted. "During the past
3 weeks, the year-to-date acreage burned by wildfires increased from
1.1 million to 3.1 million (acres) as of this writing."
Other
parts of the Midwest are rationing water as well. In Kansas, the town of
Russell this week approved restrictions. So too have many towns in
Illinois and Wisconsin.
Rain is forecast for some drought areas over the next week, but overall the outlook remains grim.
"Unfortunately,
parts of the Plains from the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and Kansas
potentially eastward into Illinois and Indiana may see little
significant rainfall over the next 5-7 days," weather.com meteorologist
Jon Erdman warned in his drought post.